Erin ’s Reviews > After the Miracle: The Political Crusades of Helen Keller > Status Update

Helen cited the French Revolution to illustrate her belief that "bloodshed" was sometimes necessary in pursuit of democracy.

Helen was among the American authors, including Upton Sinclair and Jack London who had been singled out by Nazis as an enemy of the new order.

Helen found no evidence however that her country was committed to true democracy. Instead she charged the United States had become a "democracy where Negroes may be massacred and their property burned. A democracy where lynching and child labor are tolerated. "

When Emma Goldman was arrested in New York for distributing pamphlets advocating women's right to birth control in 1913. Helen weighed in and offered her unconditional support.

"We can't have education without revolution."

"The money power behind the newspapers is against Socialism. I find the editors obedient to the hand that feeds them will go to any length to put down Socialism and undermine the influence of Socialism."

Helen was very forward-thinking in understanding the links between gender and class. An analysis rarely heard within a suffragist movement largely dominated by white women of means.

For Eugene Debs who headed the Socialist Party of America since 1901, socialism meant the "emancipation of the working class from wage slavery and the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industries in the interest of all the people. "

The events that took place in Alabama when Helen was 6 years old have largely overshadowed or erased the extraordinary 80 years of her life that followed.

Alexander Graham Bell spent decades experimenting with hearing devices because both his wife and his mother were deaf.